Twilight of the Wagners: The Unveiling of a Family's Legacy

Richard Wagner's great-grandson Gottfried Wagner, born after the end of World War II, was taught to worship his great-grandfather as a cultural ancestor of all of Germany. Richard Wagner inspired a generation of philosophers, cultural critics, and politicians. Perhaps no one took Richard Wagner's polemics more to heart than Adolf Hitler, for whom the musician was a foundational influence. In Gottfried Wagner's memoir, Twilight of the Wagners: The Unveiling of a Family's Legacy, Hitler is an inescapable presence, as he was in Gottfried's family--one of the many specters haunting the Wagner estate, though young Gottfried wondered if he was the only one who could see them. One afternoon he discovered old photographs and oil paintings of Hitler among the family memorabilia. Warned never to mention the pictures to anyone, he became an unwilling coconspirator in his family's secret. Gottfried Wagner reclaimed his voice during adolescence and began an impassioned crusade in adulthood to examine the hatred and racism he knew growing up in Bayreuth. Although disinherited and ostracized by his father, Gottfried has become an outspoken critic of Richard Wagner's legacy and a champion of greater understanding between Germans and Holocaust survivors worldwide. With a judicious eye for detail, a sweeping sense of conscience, and the determination to redeem himself and his past, Gottfried Wagner lays bare the sins of this powerful family.

Biographies & Memoirs

Wagner, Gottfried

Couling, Della

Arts & Literature

Picador USA

Unwanted Legacies: Sharing the Burden of Post-Genocide Generations (Modern Jewish History)

How does a society reconcile itself in a post-genocide era? How can generations of those whose families were victims and victimizers break the cycle of hate, mistrust, shame, and guilt that characterizes their relationship? What family reactions do they face as they seek to begin the act of sitting across from each other and facing their legacies? For more than two decades, Gottfried Wagner, great-grandson of composer Richard Wagner, whose music inspired Adolf Hitler and whose family helped the Nazis rise to power, and Abraham J. Peck, the son of two survivors whose entire families were murdered in the Holocaust, have been engaged in a unique and often torturous discussion on the German-Jewish relationship after the Shoah. That discussion has focused on their family histories and on the myths and realities of the relationship between Germans and Jews since the beginning of the nineteenth century and the process of reshaping that relationship for those Germans and Jews born after 1945. Rejecting the notion that they are either victims or perpetrators, both authors examine the “unwanted legacies” they inherited and have had to confront and overcome.

History

Peck, Abraham

World

Texas Tech University Press

How does a society reconcile itself in a post-genocide era? How can generations of those whose families were victims and victimizers break the cycle of hate, mistrust, shame, and guilt that characterizes their relationship? What family reactions do they face as they seek to begin the act of sitting across from each other and facing their legacies? For more than two decades, Gottfried Wagner, great-grandson of composer Richard Wagner, whose music inspired Adolf Hitler and whose family helped the Nazis rise to power, and Abraham J. Peck, the son of two survivors whose entire families were murdered in the Holocaust, have been engaged in a unique and often torturous discussion on the German-Jewish relationship after the Shoah. That discussion has focused on their family histories and on the myths and realities of the relationship between Germans and Jews since the beginning of the nineteenth century and the process of reshaping that relationship for those Germans and Jews born after 1945. Rejecting the notion that they are either victims or perpetrators, both authors examine the “unwanted legacies” they inherited and have had to confront and overcome.

He Who Does Not Howl With the Wolf: The Wagner Legacy an Autobiography

Sanctuary Pub. Ltd.

Wer nicht mit dem Wolf heult: Autobiographische Aufzeichnungen eines Wagner-Urenkels (German Edition)

Reference

Foreign Language Study & Reference

Kiepenheuer & Witsch

Wer nicht mit dem Wolf heult. Autobiographische Aufzeichnungen eines Wagner- Urenkels.

"Wer nicht mit dem Wolf heult": Autobiographische Aufzeichnungen eines Wagner-Urenkels

Arts & Photography

Music

Kiepenheuer & Witsch GmbH

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Wagner, Gottfried. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Wagner, Gottfried